It was time to go. Mothers and fathers were kissing their children goodbye and exchanging a few smiley words with the teacher.

But I stood there until the bell went, looking up at Scout’s picture of our family, surrounded by all that empty white space.

Stan didn’t like being left at home. He had upended his water dish, torn the puppy pad in his cage to shreds, and for an encore climbed on to the coffee table and contemptuously batted away the mouse of my laptop, so it dangled just above the floorboards like a hanging man.

We stared at each other.

A Cavalier would not have been my first choice for a dog. Or even my fifth or sixth choice. I would have gone for something larger. A Labrador or a Golden Retriever. A German Shepherd. Stan considered me with his bulging eyes, absent-mindedly gnawing on a TV cable as I cleaned up his mess. Something larger and smarter, I thought.

But Scout had done her research and she knew what she wanted. Stan was her dog.

And even if he had burned the place down, I couldn’t be angry with him today. Without Stan in our lives all the white space around us might have swallowed us alive.

It was still early as Stan and I cut through Charterhouse Square on our way home from our walk. Mallory would be alone up in MIR-1, drinking his tea and figuring. Stan and I still had some time together before I put him in the custody of Mrs Murphy and went to work.

He was squatting for his wet when I became aware of the men on a bench. Three of them. Still up from last night. We got a lot of committed drinkers round our way, drawn by the all-night pubs surrounding Smithfield meat market. Two pasty-faced white boys in cheap grey sports gear, and an Asian man, older and larger, wearing a T-shirt despite the early morning chill. A weightlifter. He was the one who made a kissing noise at my dog.

I smiled.

The three men stared back.

It wasn’t a good moment.

Then Stan was scampering happily towards them, mad with excitement, pulling me, incredulous at the coincidence that they happened to be here at exactly the same time as him.

I dropped the lead to allow him to greet them.

And that was my mistake.

The weightlifter picked Stan up – and picked him up all wrong, with both hands wrapped around the dog’s chest, not supporting his weight with one hand under his butt – and recoiled with disgust when Stan attempted to lick his face.

As his milky-faced mates laughed, the weightlifter dropped Stan heavily. He twisted as he fell, landing hard and yelping. Stan was whimpering now, his tail rigid between his legs, ears flattened – all the hallmarks of dog terror.